The total deer harvest for the 2011-12 Missouri firearms deer season was 238,921 compared to last year’s total of 231,513.

Jason Sumners, a Missouri Department of Conservation resource science deer biologist, said Missouri’s record firearms deer harvest of 280,856 came in 2006. The 10-year average of 252,029 is far above this year’s harvest of 238,921.

“There are simply fewer does in the population today than there were six or eight years ago,” Sumners said. “This means that the doe harvest doesn’t need to be as high to manage population numbers as it was several years ago when deer populations in many parts of Missouri were growing rapidly.”